White-washing

[Prometheus]

13 hours ago, CharonY said:

As I said, it is in the context of the US industry. After all, one should not expect you to have to move to a different country for a job, just because of your heritage. 

Fair enough, shouldn't expect to but going abroad but is an option. We suffer from that in the UK - not realising we are in global job market and failing to seize the opportunities that come with it.

In terms of this particular film since the actor took it upon himself to resign the role, with no undue pressure, i can have no complaints.

Is it really as bad in the US as some of you guys are saying: that a subset of audiences won't watch films without white leads? 

 

14 minutes ago, Lord Antares said:

However, as of now, males are still mutiple times more likely to play a game, even with a lead female character. DOTA 2, for example, a very popular games features a cast with close to 50% of characters being female, yet the majority of players are still male and all pro players are male. So, males are still more dedicated and interested, but it could be because of the long-lasting tradition of video games being a ''male thing''. I do expect to see a rise in female population, which I don't mind.

In the tabletop RPG community there has long been a problem with encouraging women into the hobby. I imagine it's partly the portrayal of women in those games rather than a lack of women: bar wenches, bikini armour clad warriors and femme fatal rogues (oh, and the old hag witch - but she barely counts as a human because she isn't sexual). That's about it. Which is why i'm surprised Wonder woman is held aloft as a positive step forward - unless she is more than just hot kick-arse woman in bikini armour? I don't mind a few of these stereotypes, but when every women you meet in a game is one of these it gets very tiresome very quickly. Must be doubly so for potential female gamers. It's this sort of lack of diversity that i lament.

I have noticed more men choosing to play female characters now though, usually moving away from the stereotype characters.

Good to see a female Dr. Who too, should be interesting.

[CharonY]

4 hours ago, Prometheus said:

Is it really as bad in the US as some of you guys are saying: that a subset of audiences won't watch films without white leads? 

I have not seen any statistics, but I would assume that studios are doing some audience testing. That being said there are two aspects that may also play into it. The first is that social media may amplify the voices of certain fringes who would decry such things. More importantly, most filmmakers are white. I would assume that they can more relate characters more similar to themselves which, in turn may affect the sense of fit for a role. This phenomenon has also been observed in other highly competitive hiring situations (management, academia etc.) where some studies have found a strong effect on the hiring environment on the perception of fit.

 

4 hours ago, Prometheus said:

In the tabletop RPG community there has long been a problem with encouraging women into the hobby. I imagine it's partly the portrayal of women in those games rather than a lack of women: bar wenches, bikini armour clad warriors and femme fatal rogues (oh, and the old hag witch - but she barely counts as a human because she isn't sexual).

It is often not only bad writing (which clearly are male-centered, it would be great if there were as many good female RPG as fantasy writers) but especially the younger community tends to be somewhat toxic. Tabletops perhaps slightly less so, as there is more direct communication going on. However, online video games can be pretty bad. Almost all female gamers I knew at some pointed started to mute their mics. 

Edited August 30, 2017 by CharonY

[Lord Antares]

6 hours ago, Prometheus said:

In the tabletop RPG community there has long been a problem with encouraging women into the hobby. I imagine it's partly the portrayal of women in those games rather than a lack of women: bar wenches, bikini armour clad warriors and femme fatal rogues (oh, and the old hag witch - but she barely counts as a human because she isn't sexual)...

I have not seen people talk about this, but have you thought about women simply not being interested in it? Take chess for example. Chess is an impersonal game (no character or something else a particual gender could relate to) and the ratio of men to women is about what you'd expect, similar to videogames. Any argument about it being less accessible to women is invalid, since they actually have more choice (they could play in normal or women only tournaments). Still, the highest rated woman is about rank 50. Why?

What I've gathered from noticing stuff like this is that women seem to get into these things less than men do. They seem to be less dedicated (not necessarily a bad thing). When I notice a lot of the best male players, they seem to be only about chess and nothing else. Take Bobby Fischer for example, one of the (if not the) best players of all time. He literally did nothing but study chess all the time. He had no social life or other interests; chess was his life. When I see the best female players, I see love of the game, but other things as well. The Polgar sisters (one of them being the best female player of all time) are, to my knowledge, all married and active in other things. I think some like hiking, sports, travelling and other activities. This could also explain why men tend to be better at games and unphysical sports.

I know this is only one example, but I've noticed this in a lot of disciplines and life as well. Same goes for video games. When you see female streamers, they all seem to have boyfriends and a life outside of gaming. When you see the best male streamers, all they ever do is play and practice the game with no other interests. I've noticed the same for other things is life, including science to a lesser extent. It is truly my belief that this is why women are under-represented in science, video and tabletop/board games and such activities. I don't have any statistics to support this, but that noticing it from now, you'll see how often it seems that this is the case.

Why they have less interest is another matter. Maybe they're discouraged from it (I doubt it in cases like chess. Video games, maybe), maybe they want to have multiple priorities in life, maybe it simply doesn't give them any interest; I don't know.

[CharonY]

2 hours ago, Lord Antares said:

Why they have less interest is another matter. Maybe they're discouraged from it (I doubt it in cases like chess. Video games, maybe), maybe they want to have multiple priorities in life, maybe it simply doesn't give them any interest; I don't know.

It is highly problematic to assume an entirely internal mechanism as, rather obviously, interests are shaped through experience. There are many hobbies and disciplines that are more strongly associated with a gender and crossing that barrier may be inhibitory for fostering interest. After all, no one really is a blank slate. 

I would also be careful about extrapolating highly unusual individuals. After all, how many male players are like Bobby Fisher? He was that good but he was also certainly unusual and is hardly representative. As such, in any given statistic he would represent an outlier and thus, not explain any gender gaps. The fact that a female Bobby Fisher is missing is also rather trivially explained by the low participation rates of women. After all, how many male chess players were there before someone of the caliber of Bobby Fisher emerged? In fact there was a paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society (forgot the authors) that concluded that ~95% of the differences in male-female scoring can solely be explained by the lower number of females, using data from the German chess federation.

I would also claim that numerically, most hobbyists, are not bordering on obsessive and are likely to have a fairly balanced life. In fact, even in highly competitive areas outside of hobbies (say, science), highly successful individuals typically have develop strategies to balance their lives. The super-focused savant individual that is also highly successful is more a myth than reality.

Slightly off-topic, but I find it interesting that often (not necessarily in this discussion) gender differences are explained away by "natural propensity" of the given genders. Not only does it ignore brain plasticity but there is also a framework that categorizes these propensity in a certain light (I had an interesting discussion with people working on gender research, and maybe I could start another topic on that).  But in short, gender are often assigned certain strengths and weaknesses, such as e.g. communicative skills as a plus in women and focus and as a strength in men.

However, even assuming this is true, if we look at real life requirements in jobs, there are rather obvious clashes. For example, some might argue that attention to detail and focus is incredibly important for certain lines of work (which is true) and that is why men are good at, say getting tech jobs and women (with their communicative skills) are better in support. What is ignored is that at the managerial levels the small picture skills are actually far less important and people skill as well as broad vision are more desirable. So in that regard we would expect an over representation of women in managerial roles. Strangely, that is not the case.

The other aspect is, of course, that assuming there are internal differences/propensities, often the effect size that is being measured is very small. While potentially a contributing factor, it usually does not hold sufficient evidence for the large gender gaps in various areas that we may see.

[Prometheus]

17 hours ago, Lord Antares said:

I have not seen people talk about this, but have you thought about women simply not being interested in it?

It's possible that on average men are more drawn to this hobby than women, but it's definitely not the case that there are no women interested in tabletop RPGs. I've gamed with a few women, but only those i have introduced to the hobby, and they have continued. I've not seen it myself but apparently the hobby suffers terribly from misogyny, to the point where convention organisers have to remind people not to grope women. 

There's also the emphasis of the games. Lots of people just want to kill things and steal treasure. Maybe that just doesn't appeal to many women. I personally hate these sorts of games, and prefer to emphasise character development and social interactions (not to say killing and treasure don't feature at all). Perhaps that will appeal more to women.

This debate about women not enjoying these sorts of things for physiological reasons is likely to continue. Is there an existing body of evidence or attempts to validate such claims?

 

In terms of ethnicity, the hobby is very white dominated. No idea why. I've introduced plenty non white people to the hobby and they've enjoyed it as much as white people. Often Game Masters will put on accents for different characters. Maybe this offends some people? Is doing an accent offensive? It's done to add realism.

 

[CharonY]

11 hours ago, Prometheus said:

 

In terms of ethnicity, the hobby is very white dominated. No idea why. I've introduced plenty non white people to the hobby and they've enjoyed it as much as white people. Often Game Masters will put on accents for different characters. Maybe this offends some people? Is doing an accent offensive? It's done to add realism.

 

I highly doubt that offense plays any role. One thing to remember is that RPGs are generally a niche hobby. Also it is (or at least was) more commonly a college hobby and from there it is already far more likely to consist mainly of white folks. Especially for foreign students there is also potentially a language barrier. But for the most part, it is simply not a terribly common hobby to begin with.

[Lord Antares]

On 31. 08. 2017. at 1:27 PM, Prometheus said:

It's possible that on average men are more drawn to this hobby than women, but it's definitely not the case that there are no women interested in tabletop RPGs. I've gamed with a few women, but only those i have introduced to the hobby, and they have continued. I've not seen it myself but apparently the hobby suffers terribly from misogyny, to the point where convention organisers have to remind people not to grope women.

As I said, chess is a far better example. It's as impersonal as possible and devoid of any gender or ethical issues. Women have at least as much access to chess as men do, yet there are far fewer women than men in chess. The most reasonable assumption would be that they simply lack interest in chess. I don't think anyone could provide an alternative explanation which makes sense as of yet.

On 30. 08. 2017. at 11:11 PM, CharonY said:

I would also be careful about extrapolating highly unusual individuals. After all, how many male players are like Bobby Fisher? He was that good but he was also certainly unusual and is hardly representative.

This was the bit where I attempted to explain why the best players always tend to be male, not why there aren't as many female players. I think it is the life-consuming interest and restless attitude about a game  which are far, far common in men than women which often makes the best players.

Also, if you look at many chess champions, you will see a lot of oddity and ''abnormal'' devotion to chess. So in many ways, a lot of champions were like Bobby Fischer as a matter of fact.

On 30. 08. 2017. at 11:11 PM, CharonY said:

Slightly off-topic, but I find it interesting that often (not necessarily in this discussion) gender differences are explained away by "natural propensity" of the given genders. Not only does it ignore brain plasticity but there is also a framework that categorizes these propensity in a certain light (I had an interesting discussion with people working on gender research, and maybe I could start another topic on that).  But in short, gender are often assigned certain strengths and weaknesses, such as e.g. communicative skills as a plus in women and focus and as a strength in men.

It is because these are very vague and unspecific skills. They border on nonsense, to be honest. What is ''focus and strength'' in some desk or programming job? Or many other jobs?

On the other hand, if you generalize and say that women are more sensitive and men are more aggressive, your generalization will be true, on average. You are a biology expert, so you do understand that there are some noticeable differences in men and women.

[CharonY]

On 8/30/2017 at 4:35 AM, Ten oz said:

A few weeks back I was at a friends house helping him install some lighting and the movie Stand By Me was playing in the background. He and I briefly discussed our favorite scenes of the movie. My friend is Indian yet likes the movie Stand By Me which is centered around a group of white children. Everyone I have every spoken about movies with likes Stand By Me regardless of their background. The movie is a classic loved by all here in the U.S.. If the Stand By Me featured a group of children which were something other than white would it still be loved by all here in the States? My guess is no. In the U.S. it seems all groups are willing to watch movies which star white leads but the opposite isn't true. White audiences in the U.S. don't seem to be willing to watch non white leads.

It still is not really an answer as the question still remains, why? Is there an innate barrier or, is it because it is not seen as feminine? There is still a barrier in our society that ascertains certain traits as male and others as female and crossing the barrier comes at a social cost. For example, do men have less interest in raising children, or are there fewer men that take over household roles (or are single parents) because raising children is still predominantly seen as a female trait and men that want to take on this role face major social challenges?

In other words, "interest" in itself explains preciously little why certain gender distributions exist. 

4 hours ago, Lord Antares said:

 

This was the bit where I attempted to explain why the best players always tend to be male, not why there aren't as many female players. I think it is the life-consuming interest and restless attitude about a game  which are far, far common in men than women which often makes the best players.

 

As I said before, it is still a numbers game. If you have 100,000 players there is a higher chance that there is one with those exceptional devotion to the game than if your starting pool is only a 100 individuals. 

 

4 hours ago, Lord Antares said:

On the other hand, if you generalize and say that women are more sensitive and men are more aggressive, your generalization will be true, on average. You are a biology expert, so you do understand that there are some noticeable differences in men and women.

Actually in many aspects, especially with regard to learned traits, the plasticity in the brain makes it really difficult to spot biological differences. For the longest time I erroneously assumed that there are marked differences in brain physiology between men and women (similar maybe to certain skeletal features). As it turns out, the plasticity is so large that it is really difficult to figure out the gender of a person by looking at a brain. On average there may be certain differences, but those differences in itself are not predictive. MRI studies tried to find typically male or female features but largely failed. There is one model that claims to be able to do so, but I suspect that due to the high-dimensionality of MRI data there may be some overfitting (and also there are not fixed structures that are diagnostic just a higher prevalence of certain patterns of unknown function).

There are studies that have looked at certain tasks, the performance difference is often quite minor (often within 10-20%) whereas differences in gender distribution in certain areas is far larger (~70% in tech for example). More problematic than that is the fact that these differences may come from different training (e.g. in spatial perception tests there may be more men with jobs that use that skill more often than women). If we look at early studies, such as tests in infants which have indicated a higher interest of boys in things rather than faces, we have an even bigger issue. At least one study was severely flawed as the parents had a large influence on the behaviour and some follow up-studies showed that about a third of the cohort had not difference in interest (and the data seemed to be tossed) while the remaining data seemed to again indicate a slightly higher interest of boys in things. But then the effect was about a difference of 5-10 seconds (ignoring the group that showed not interest preference to begin with). Again, it is almost impossible to translate those findings into defining gender differences. In the end it appears that also biology does not help to explain observed differences satisfactory. 

The big issue is that we assume certain distributions as given, whereas neglecting that there is a big feedback issue going on. Men that want to take on nurturing roles, for example face challenges as do women who want to take on leadership roles in predominantly male jobs.The underlying assumption is often that there is some natural order to things, driven by some sort of biological factors. In truth most data in gender differences show remarkable small effect sizes (I have vastly overestimated those myself) and even where differences exist, it is entirely impossible to draw a direct line to a given gender difference within society. This is not to say that learning and societal interactions explain everything, but considering the plasticity of the brain and the almost constant feedback we get from other people during learning processes, it is clearly to have some effect.

[Ten oz]

11 hours ago, CharonY said:

It still is not really an answer as the question still remains, why? Is there an innate barrier or, is it because it is not seen as feminine? There is still a barrier in our society that ascertains certain traits as male and others as female and crossing the barrier comes at a social cost. For example, do men have less interest in raising children, or are there fewer men that take over household roles (or are single parents) because raising children is still predominantly seen as a female trait and men that want to take on this role face major social challenges?

In other words, "interest" in itself explains preciously little why certain gender distributions exist.

My parents weren't the type to watch cartoons with their kids. We watched what they wanted to watch and not vice versa. Add to that I am a few years younger than my siblings and they (siblings) weren't watching cartoons, So growing up I never saw Alladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, and etc. Obviously I heard me peers carry on about them but never sat down and watched one. As an adult I have caught large segments of those cartoons while baby sitting and what not and it jumps out at me how classist, misogynistic, and racist they all are. Female characters are all drawn thin and ultra feminine to inhuman proportions while being valued by other characters purely based on either their position in society or their beauty/cuteness. Talking pets and inanimate objects (lamps, tea pots, etc) have cringeworthy stereotypical personalities that appear to mock minorities. Meanwhile the approval of wealthy males born into status often seems to be the primary goal of all characters. I find them to be in poor taste yet here in the U.S. our children watch each one a hundred times over per week. I have only seen the advertisements for Disney's Moana but those ads are an example of what I am referencing; the male has an exaggerated large heavy frame with enthnic features while the female has a thin petite frame with etremely fair features.

 

Basically I am saying, to an extent, audiences are conditioned from a young age to identify certian looks and relationships a certian way. Women leads must be atractive, males must be strong, and minorities are secondary characters. Obviously there are more layers to the issue but I think cartoons play a small role. They are the first look at film many people getand conditions certian expectations.

[Prometheus]

On 9/4/2017 at 7:01 PM, Lord Antares said:

As I said, chess is a far better example.

CharonY makes a good point: are the different preferences between sexes due to immutable neuro-biological differences or are they imposed upon the plastic brain by culture? And how do we tell the difference?

 

On 9/1/2017 at 0:11 AM, CharonY said:

I highly doubt that offense plays any role. One thing to remember is that RPGs are generally a niche hobby. Also it is (or at least was) more commonly a college hobby and from there it is already far more likely to consist mainly of white folks. Especially for foreign students there is also potentially a language barrier. But for the most part, it is simply not a terribly common hobby to begin with.

It is a niche hobby, though growing fast now that geek culture has become popular, but i'm not sure it is a college hobby. Maybe it used to be but now those people have gone out into the world with the hobby. Also i have noticed east Asians into the hobby, but i have never once played with a black person. But i'm just going on personal experience, there's very little demographic data on the subject. Also i'm not sure how representative the hobby is of other domains such as sports and e-sports.

 

21 hours ago, Ten oz said:

Obviously there are more layers to the issue but I think cartoons play a small role. They are the first look at film many people getand conditions certian expectations.

I suspect they play a large role. I am the only nurse my niece knows and i'm male. She has still somehow grown up thinking nurses are female. Something has influenced her to a greater degree than the actual reality she has been exposed to.

[waitforufo]

While there are stories where race plays an important part, Jim in Huckleberry Fin for example, there are far more stories where race isn't important.  In such stories, casting people without regard to race, I believe, gives us a glimpse of how our culture and society should operate.  I find stories cast in such a way to be quite refreshing.  I find this to be particularly true when the director does not add racial tension which is not found in the original story.  If there was no racial tension in the original story, why should it be added to a modern rendition.  My world if full of people of different races.  Why shouldn't that also apply to my entertainment?

The gender issue around games I find to be a different issue.  The nature/nurture question is a tough nut to crack.  I think one has to look at evolutionary time scales to understand nature.  For example Zebras are herd animals.  Was there a time in their evolutionary path where they were not herd animals?  How has the evolution of Zebras ingrained the herd instinct into Zebras.  Similar questions can be asked about gender differences between men and women.  How long have there been role differences between the roles of men and women.  Has evolution ingrained these role differences into men and women?  For example, are women more cooperative and men more competitive.  Did these differences improve human survival?  Did abstracting problems into games somehow benefit men more than women in contributing to human survival?  If so, perhaps men are instinctually more interested in games.  Now I'm sure some will be offended by such a line of questioning, but perhaps it shows the importance of diversity.  Our survival depends on the skills we developed during our evolution.  Why wouldn't our success continue to depend on those diverse skills.      

Edited September 6, 2017 by waitforufo

[CharonY]

There are several issues with trying an evolutionary perspective of things. And no, I do not mean that anyone should be offended by it, but rather with the difficulty to properly contextualize and quantify the relevance. For example, we, as a species, are utterly not evolutionarily adapted to modern life. Yet we seem to navigate it decently enough. How do put our ability read and talk in the abstract into perspective? Obviously, for the longest time of the evolution of our species it did not play a role? And these are qualitative differences. The difference between men and women in many aspects are quantitative at best. And in many cases the data is  conflicted, despite the fact that they are commonly assumed to be true by society. For example, meta analyses do not find strong evidence that women are more cooperative than men. Which means, even if they truly were, the difference is so small that studies are not able to reliably trace them. Especially small cognitive differences, which at best show modest differences on the population level, are incredibly extrapolated to certain outcomes (I know that certain evo-psych people like to do so, but I have been getting quite disillusioned by the handwaving-to-data-ratio in that field).

Of course the ability of women to bear children and feed them with milk is a strong indicator that in principle they have at least some qualitative advantages in terms of child-rearing. But then, modern amenities. including baby formula and modern lifestyles may modulate it to a large degree. My point being that our ability to learn and the fact that behaviour is strongly moulded by the environment makes it very difficult to identify what seems to be assumed to be a "natural" state (based on our evolutionary history). Moreover, it may be quite pointless to do so, as our way of living has diverged massively to what most of our evolutionary history used to be.

Are there evolutionary parts of our lizard brains that may make us more likely to be inclined to do certain things (say, craving sugar)? Most likely. Yet at the same time we seem to be pretty good at navigating it to some degree (sure, we have obesity problems, but despite the almost free availability of sugar, education has led to moderation to some degree). Considering the overall huge flexibility of our behaviour (we are not evolved to typing and spellcheck, darnit), I do not see a whole lot of explanatory power by assuming a fixed biological component. Unless, of course, there is strong data indicating  biological mechanisms (rather than environmental factors, including societal norms) as the main factors.

After all, if in biology we would say that whatever we observe is just genetics, rather than looking into the physiological side of things, we would pretty much explain nothing.

[waitforufo]

Well I did say it was a tough nut to crack. 

25 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Of course the ability of women to bear children and feed them with milk is a strong indicator that in principle they have at least some qualitative advantages in terms of child-rearing. But then, modern amenities. including baby formula and modern lifestyles may modulate it to a large degree. My point being that our ability to learn and the fact that behaviour is strongly moulded by the environment makes it very difficult to identify what seems to be assumed to be a "natural" state (based on our evolutionary history). Moreover, it may be quite pointless to do so, as our way of living has diverged massively to what most of our evolutionary history used to be.

You say our way of living has diverged massively to what most of our evolutionary history used to be.  I think it is important to consider how log ago did it diverged and for who.  I'm not an anthropologist, but I'm sure there are lots of people living today where that statement is not true.  Maybe a billion people.  I wonder how true that statement was for my great grandfather who was born on an Indian Reservation in Oklahoma in 1867.  Was it true for sod busters on the American plains.  Even for those of us where your statement is true, that massive divergence is very new, maybe just the last few hundred years.  I don't think that time could even be considered part of our evolutionary history.  

I think most of us like to believe we are blank slates when we are born, but I doubt that is true.  For what other species is it true?   

[CharonY]

I am absolutely not saying we are blank slates. What I am saying is that we are quite malleable in many aspects, less so in others.  The issue is most of our non-malleable aspects are shared by most individuals. Whether the remaining differences can a) be observed reliably and b) play a significant role is the matter of contention. Just to re-iterate, it is not about blank slate vs fixed behaviour as both extremes are almost certainly not applicable. It is a question of nuance and how significant it is.

1 hour ago, waitforufo said:

I think it is important to consider how log ago did it diverged and for who.  I'm not an anthropologist, but I'm sure there are lots of people living today where that statement is not true.  Maybe a billion people.  I wonder how true that statement was for my great grandfather who was born on an Indian Reservation in Oklahoma in 1867.  Was it true for sod busters on the American plains

I think we are actually in agreement, as I stated that despite the changes in our environment compared to those in the dawn of humanity are able to navigate these changes without the need for evolutionary adaptation. Which in turn indicates that individuals (as opposed to species) exhibit the variability to e.g. acquire the ability to communicate, in the abstract via the internet.

Again, not talking about blank slates, but about the degree of flexibility we have because of our evolutionary history. That alone, is a big question and trying to pinpoint specific differences among groups of people is likely to be even more difficult. Conversely, as certain things can be learned (such as reading and writing) it is also likely to assume that certain aspects where we observe differences are due to training. The gender issue is therefore difficult to resolve as both genders share a big chunk (obviously) of biology. Where there are differences, especially in cognitive abilities, the malleability of the brain (and which function is known to be extremely dependent on input and usage) makes it difficult to pinpoint to how much it is due to base ability and how much due to training.

In fact, if the latter can overcome the former how relevant is that in the end (depends on the question, of course)? There may be things in which it is noticeable. But again, in most studies I found the average differences are annoyingly small (and even worse, they often tend to become smaller or vanish in meta-analyses). On the other hand, the societal assumptions (such as girls are more collaborative or even differences in mathematical abilities) seem to far outpace the data we got. Maybe to describe the issue a bit: what we got is essentially noisy data. There maybe a gender specific component, but it is overlaid with a lot of noise arising from e.g. upbringing, personal learning, society and so on. Moreover, the overall effect size (e.g. the measurable factor distinguishing gender) is fairly small. As a whole it is therefore difficult to tell whether a) the effect is relevant and b) if so, how much of it is due to gender biology  rather than all the other factors. 

Differences in gender demographics are even more complicated as they add even more factors to the mix and using that information and trying to trace back to a simple biological origin is even more complicated or close to impossible. Just to be clear, it does not mean that there are absolutely no gender differences. Rather I want to caution the presupposition of differences and heavily extrapolate assumptions based on scant, non-existing or misunderstood data. 

Edited September 6, 2017 by CharonY

[waitforufo]

Perhaps our instincts are so innate to our being that we don't even recognize when we or other humans exhibit them.  Our minds are busy doing important things so they simply filter out the obvious expected things that people do.  Obvious to us by instinct.  For example, my dog always walks around in a circle before he lies down to rest.  It's a nesting instinct done without thought.  I'm sure it has a purpose in his native environment, but is serves no purpose on my living room carpet.  It's obvious to me but not to my dog.

Perhaps we are not the keen observers we believe ourselves to be, particularly when we observe ourselves.  

Now if we do have a nature, and that nature for men and women is different but complementary, will we benefit in denying our natures?  I'm not sure.  In fact I doubt it.  

[Raider5678]

On 8/29/2017 at 7:44 AM, Strange said:

Yes, because it is much more comfortable if everyone looks like you. 

Yes, because it's so much better when I'm trying to organize a play for VBS and someone yells "Do you have a black actor?"

Because THATS the way to make sure they don't feel left out.

 

Honestly. Screw ethnicity. If people are gonna claim everyone's equal, you can't go around telling them they have to include a black actor.

And the kid who ended up getting chosen to be an actor.

In front of everyone else. Because he was black. I'm sure he loved that part.  Mainly because he was the only black kid there. And there were 5 actors. Out of 40 plus kids. 

On 8/30/2017 at 6:35 AM, Ten oz said:

A few weeks back I was at a friends house helping him install some lighting and the movie Stand By Me was playing in the background. He and I briefly discussed our favorite scenes of the movie. My friend is Indian yet likes the movie Stand By Me which is centered around a group of white children. Everyone I have every spoken about movies with likes Stand By Me regardless of their background. The movie is a classic loved by all here in the U.S.. If the Stand By Me featured a group of children which were something other than white would it still be loved by all here in the States? My guess is no. In the U.S. it seems all groups are willing to watch movies which star white leads but the opposite isn't true. White audiences in the U.S. don't seem to be willing to watch non white leads.

Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Eddie Murphy are all successful black actors, WELL known too.

Your view is kinda biased. 

On 9/5/2017 at 7:10 AM, Ten oz said:

My parents weren't the type to watch cartoons with their kids. We watched what they wanted to watch and not vice versa. Add to that I am a few years younger than my siblings and they (siblings) weren't watching cartoons, So growing up I never saw Alladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, and etc. Obviously I heard me peers carry on about them but never sat down and watched one. As an adult I have caught large segments of those cartoons while baby sitting and what not and it jumps out at me how classist, misogynistic, and racist they all are. Female characters are all drawn thin and ultra feminine to inhuman proportions while being valued by other characters purely based on either their position in society or their beauty/cuteness. Talking pets and inanimate objects (lamps, tea pots, etc) have cringeworthy stereotypical personalities that appear to mock minorities. Meanwhile the approval of wealthy males born into status often seems to be the primary goal of all characters. I find them to be in poor taste yet here in the U.S. our children watch each one a hundred times over per week. I have only seen the advertisements for Disney's Moana but those ads are an example of what I am referencing; the male has an exaggerated large heavy frame with enthnic features while the female has a thin petite frame with etremely fair features.

 

Basically I am saying, to an extent, audiences are conditioned from a young age to identify certian looks and relationships a certian way. Women leads must be atractive, males must be strong, and minorities are secondary characters. Obviously there are more layers to the issue but I think cartoons play a small role. They are the first look at film many people getand conditions certian expectations.

OR.

It simply makes for better kids cartoons if they don't make the princess weigh 500 pounds and the prince a short alcoholic. 

I mean. Come on.

Of all the things to be offended of. I've never heard someone yell "You don't look like Cinderella!" as an insult.

I'm not saying that they're not biased, but I highly doubt that the ultimate goal of them was to advance a white supremacist agenda. Most likely, they just made movies that they thought kids would like.

[CharonY]

2 hours ago, waitforufo said:

Perhaps we are not the keen observers we believe ourselves to be, particularly when we observe ourselves.  

That is why in science we have experimental designs to get data, rather than use our gut feeling or personal observations.

 

2 hours ago, waitforufo said:

Now if we do have a nature, and that nature for men and women is different but complementary, will we benefit in denying our natures?  I'm not sure.  In fact I doubt it.  

And here there are two problems. If we are bad observers (and have little data) what do we use to determine what the nature is? And second, what does it actually mean to deny ones nature and why must it be bad? It is in our nature to crave sweets. But obviously we also learn to curb our intake (if we want to live healthy). And there are many situations where curbing inclinations is actually beneficial. Should we lash physically out each time we feel angered? In that second it does feel good and it is often so reflexive that one can assume biological functions behind it (plus there are certain physiological responses that we can measure). Yet in the long run  I think it would be beneficial to learn to control such reflexes. After all, isn't a big part of our upbringing learning how to function within society? And is that a bad thing?

[Ten oz]

8 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

Yes, because it's so much better when I'm trying to organize a play for VBS and someone yells "Do you have a black actor?"

Because THATS the way to make sure they don't feel left out.

 

Honestly. Screw ethnicity. If people are gonna claim everyone's equal, you can't go around telling them they have to include a black actor.

And the kid who ended up getting chosen to be an actor.

In front of everyone else. Because he was black. I'm sure he loved that part.  Mainly because he was the only black kid there. And there were 5 actors. Out of 40 plus kids. 

Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Eddie Murphy are all successful black actors, WELL known too.

Your view is kinda biased. 

OR.

It simply makes for better kids cartoons if they don't make the princess weigh 500 pounds and the prince a short alcoholic. 

I mean. Come on.

Of all the things to be offended of. I've never heard someone yell "You don't look like Cinderella!" as an insult.

I'm not saying that they're not biased, but I highly doubt that the ultimate goal of them was to advance a white supremacist agenda. Most likely, they just made movies that they thought kids would like.

Will Smith, Samuel Jackson, Denzel Washington, and etc are successful but they also tend to be the only main characters of color in the movie they star in. The explain I used was "Standby me", a movie populated 100% by white characters all the leads male yet enjoyed by nearly everyone who grows up in the U.S.. I can think on no equivalent to it where a film populated 100% by minorities and or all the primary leads are females yet the film attracts broad viewership and support. It simply doesn't exist. White male audiences will not watch films that are dominated by minority or female characters. It is plainly obviously. 

 

As for cartoons you are totally deaf to the reality than many are offended. This isn't my pet position but an ongoing thing:

http://time.com/4378119/disney-princess-effect-on-girls/

http://www.academia.edu/5748790/Race_and_Ethnicity_in_Walt_Disneys_Animated_Movies

:

 

@ Waitforufo, evolution with regards to modern patterns of behavior can't be applied linearly. One shouldn't assume that because people bahaved a certian way for a long time it is by default natural and appropriate to do so. If we take that perspective tham it is okay to kill jews, forcibly make young girls marry older men for trade, and enslave people. All have long stored historys. Humans have killed, raped, enslaved, and etc each other since before migrating out of Africa. It doesn't mean those things should be treated as favorable behaviors in modern films or that studios deserve a pass if they choose to show those things as favorable. The fact that the British enslaved the Irish for a period of time doesn't mean that Irish people are somehow genetically predisposed to be slaves. Just as the fact the men has assualted women throughout history doesn't mean it is a woman's place to be assualted. Saying women are more cooperative and men are more competitive is all relative. Different men in different societies are and have been more and less competive to extreme degrees. That variable isn't constent. Neither is the cooperativeness of women. Many women in modern society have the reputation of being ball busters, ice queens , divas, and etc.

 

 

Edited September 7, 2017 by Ten oz
added hyperlinks

[Raider5678]

On 9/7/2017 at 6:13 AM, Ten oz said:

As for cartoons you are totally deaf to the reality than many are offended. This isn't my pet position but an ongoing thing:

http://time.com/4378119/disney-princess-effect-on-girls/

http://www.academia.edu/5748790/Race_and_Ethnicity_in_Walt_Disneys_Animated_Movies

I didn't say I thought it was just you.

I was saying I  think there are better things to get offended over, then how an animator drew a cartoon.

But I mean, what ever your priorities are have at it.

 

 

Anyways, regarding movies.

The Help.

The Butler.

I will follow.

After Earth.

 

Sure, they're not 100% minority characters, but wouldn't saying that has to be a requirement for it to be fair counter act that idea that Stand by Me(I've never seen it or heard of it so whatever you're talking about the plot you're gonna have to explain more.) is wrong? I mean, I don't know what the plot is so if this is a totally racist movie I don't know about it. In which case, it's simply a bad movie.

And After earth is almost entirely centered around 2 Black main characters.

You can't say white people aren't willing to watch movies that star black characters only.

 

 

Just now, Raider5678 said:

I didn't say I thought it was just you.

I was saying I  think there are better things to get offended over, then how an animator drew a cartoon.

But I mean, what ever your priorities are have at it.

Also, what about the Princess and the Frog?

Or does that not count to the idea that all Disney cartoons feature WHITE main characters?

 

 

Anyways, regarding movies.

The Help.

The Butler.

I will follow.

After Earth.

 

Sure, they're not 100% minority characters, but wouldn't saying that has to be a requirement for it to be fair counter act that idea that Stand by Me(I've never seen it or heard of it so whatever you're talking about the plot you're gonna have to explain more.) is wrong? I mean, I don't know what the plot is so if this is a totally racist movie I don't know about it. In which case, it's simply a bad movie.

And After earth is almost entirely centered around 2 Black main characters.

You can't say white people aren't willing to watch movies that star black characters only.

 

 

 

 

[Ten oz]

@ Raider5678, The Help and The Butler were movies pointedly about race so having people of color in those films was essential to the plot. After Earth....hahaha....was one of Will Smith's worst performing films. Smith himself called it the "most painful failure of my career" in a 2015 interview with variety. No one here has argued people of color are never in films. There is a rather healthy genre of black films starring all black casts. The recent box office hit Girls Trip comes to mind or the many Tyler Perry films. What I was saying is that white audiences won't watch films full of people of color while people of color will films full of white actors. There is a bit of a double standard there. White Males are massively over represented on film compared to what percentage of the audience they represent. Demographics on audiences are released for the industry annually. I will link some stats when I have more time. 

[Area54]

2 hours ago, Ten oz said:

 What I was saying is that white audiences won't watch films full of people of color while people of color will films full of white actors.

I think you previously qualified this to reflect that "a significant number of white people won't watch films full of people of colour". I thik that is an important qualification to keep in mind. This white male is generally indifferent to the colour, sex, creed or appearance of the actors, unless these are key parts of the story. That indifference relates to my attitude to the film, not to the practices of the film industry.

Changing the specifc topic, the conversations on this thread encouraged me to note the ratios of actors by sex and ethnicity on TV programs that I have been watchinng. I've not done this in any systematic fashion yet, but thus far I've been pleasantly surprised. If I do document this more thoroughly, following say a week of observations, I'll report the results here. It will offer somthing more than anecdote and first impressions.

[Ten oz]

In 2016 Whites made up 51% of all tickets sold. Latinos made up 21% and  Blacks and Asians both accounted for 14% of all movie tickets sold.  Of that group collectively 52% (of all movie goers) were female.  From those numbers it can be assumed white males acount for roughly 24% of the industries business domestically. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) stats for 2016 Lists the nations demographics as 62% white, 18% latino, 12% black, and 8% Asian/other.

http://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/MPAA-Theatrical-Market-Statistics-2016_Final.pdf

 

The above link lists the top 25 movies on 2016 per domestic gross. Of those 25 movies the only 2 starred minority leads Disney's live action  version of "Jungle Book" at #5  and Dwanye Johnson & Kevin Hart led action comedy "Central Intelligence" and it came in at #22. "Ghostbusters" and "Bad Moms" were the only 2 which were led by women finishing #21 and #25. Not a single female led and just 1 minority led film in the entire top 20.

 

The MPAA compared the audience for the top 5 films. Ignoring the Animation films the top 3 live actions films of 2016 were "Star Wars: Rogue One", "Captian America Civil War", and "Jungle Book".

- StarWars:Rogue One had an audience which was 62% white, 15% latino, 11% black, and 8% Asian, 4% Native. The audience was also 59% male to 41% female.

- Captian America Civil War audience was 48% white, 22% latino, 18% black, and 9% Asian, 4% Native The audience was also 59% male to 41% female.

- Jungle Book's audience which was 43% white, 22% latino, 18% black, and 10% Asian, 7% native. The audience was also 48% male to 52% female.

 

I understand the films were all marketed to different groups of people and what not but it does seem that white audiences, a little more specifically male, at the wildcard. Minority support appears to be at or above it demographic representation across the board for all films.